When more and more consumers turned to the Internet as their primary marketplace and purchasing mechanism, the pressure to maintain some sort of web presence was keenly felt by many sellers and, in response, many sellers raced to create a web presence for themselves. More recently, as the Internet has evolved into a primary source of product information and product research for the average consumer, many sellers now realize that a mere presence on the web is no longer sufficient and that customers expect a seller's website to include relatively detailed descriptions of inventory items/products offered, along with visual data such as photographic or video images of the products being offered.
A problem for sellers arises however because even small seller businesses can offer hundreds, thousands, or even tens of thousands of various inventory items. Consequently, providing an even modestly detailed description of each inventory item, not to mention photographic or video images of these inventory items, is a daunting task requiring, in many cases, far more time and resources than the seller can afford to invest. As a result, in many instances, providing photographic and video images of the inventory items is forgone completely, and the descriptions provided by the seller's are often rather light, at times inconsistent, or wrong, include various typos and other errors, and all too often are not very enlightening for the consumer. Consequently, in many cases, the sellers are not reaping the full potential benefits offered by the Internet and valuable opportunities to obtain customers and make sales are lost.
In addition to the sellers of a product, another party that has a vested interest in an Internet presence for its products is the manufacturer of the products. In many cases, manufacturers of products would like very much to ensure that their products are being displayed and described on the Internet in the most favorable light possible. In addition, many manufacturers have very detailed and informative descriptions of their products, as well as professionally developed photographic and video images, already prepared, and, in many cases, already residing on the manufacturer's website. However, currently, there is no easily implemented and readily available mechanism in place for a seller selling a manufacturer's products to obtain, and use, the manufacturer's descriptions and/or photographs and/or video images. This is due, in part, to: inconsistency in seller identification data for a product and the manufacturer's identification data for the product and an inability to map the seller's identification of a product to the manufacturer's identification of the product; inconsistency in data formatting; and lack of a centralized and coordinated process and/or repository. Consequently, currently, neither the seller of a product, nor the manufacture of the product, typically obtains the full benefit of the best available descriptions and/or photographs and/or video images of a given product.